MSI P67-GD65 motherboard review -
EFI BIOS (MSI CLICK BIOS)

EFI BIOS (MSI CLICK BIOS)

We touched the topic at the previous page already, the new EFI BIOS is an Extensible Firmware Interface that complies with EFI architecture, offering a user-friendly interface that goes beyond traditional keyboard-only BIOS controls to enable a way more flexible and convenient mouse input at BIOS level.

EFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is a specification detailing an interface that helps hand off control of the system for the pre-boot environment (i.e.: after the system is powered on, but before the operating system starts) to an operating system, such as Windows.

EFI is an interface. It can be implemented on top of a traditional BIOS (in which case it supplants the traditional "INT" entry points into BIOS) or on top of non-BIOS implementations.

End-users can navigate the new EFI BIOS (basic input/output system) with the same smoothness as their operating system. It's simply a Windows OS feel. The EFI mode displays frequently-accessed setup info, experienced performance enthusiasts that demand far more intricate system settings and you can go nuts in there

We have recorded a little video on the new EFI BIOS feature, and yes it is as impressive as it looks. The MSI EFI Click BIOS implementation however lacks a bit of creativity as it simply does not grasp me. It's setup is somewhat illogical, you constantly have to seek, it is also somewhat unresponsive and even buggy here and there as sometimes a mouse click on a register or function simply does not work. Yeah there is lots of improvements to be made on MSI's side alright, it's still 10x better then your regular BIOS of course.

Compared to a regular BIOS the EFI BIOS is more handy to use and easy to navigate. It makes common functions really fail proof, features like flashing a BIOS is done in a jiffy and all variables can be managed and monitored really easy. We'll see a lot of ODMs make a move to the EFI BIOS this year.

Specifications

Socket

1155

CPU (Max Support)

Sandy Bridge

AM3 CPU Ready

N/A

Base Clock

100MHz

Chipset

Intel P67

DDR2 Memory

N/A

DDR3 Memory

DDR3 1066/1333/1600*/2133*(OC)

Memory Channel

Dual

DIMM Slots

4

Max Memory (GB)

32

PCI-Ex16

2

PCI-E Gen

Gen2 (1x16, 1x8)

PCI-Ex4

N/A

PCI-Ex1

3

PCI

2

IDE

N/A

SATAIII

4

SATAII

4

RAID

0/1/5/10

LAN

10/100/1000*1

TPM

1

USB 3.0 ports (Rear)

2

USB 2.0 ports (Rear)

8

Audio ports (Rear)

6+Coaxial/Optical SPDIF

Serial ports (Rear)

N/A

Parallel ports (Rear)

N/A

1394 ports (Rear)

1

eSATA

2

Form Factor

ATX

DrMOS

Y

APS

Y

SLI

Y

CrossFire

Y

Alright, let's head onwards to an overview of the motherboard with the help of a photo-shoot.

MSI P67-GD65 motherboard reviewPowered by Intel's P67 chipset, the MSI P67-GD65 motherboard comes with two PCIe slots and has both NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFire support, featuring what MSI now calls a Military Class II design that makes use of a six phase power SFC choke setup. Next to that MSI as well is making a move towards EFI, the all new graphics user interface that replaces the BIOS.